Amazon's Next 7 Pilots Will Be Out In Early 2015

Amazon Studios just announced its next slate of television pilots, which will debut sometime in early 2015. Once they're released, feedback will help decide whether Amazon will order them to series, the same as previous pilot rounds.

So which one is the next Transparent? If Amazon can score another breakout hit, it will build confidence that Amazon Studios is an up-and-coming original content maker and that Jill Holoway's charming LA story isn't a fluke.

None of the pilots are actually available yet, but the two that sound the most promising are a half-hour docuseries presented by The New Yorker called The New Yorker Presents (Alan Cumming is apparently in it), and an hour-long drama adapted from Philip K. Dick's excellent 1962 "what if the Allies lost WWII" novel "The Man in the High Castle" written by Frank Spotnitz, who also worked on The X-Files.

Another promising show: Mad Dogs, which has a low-key premise about friends gathering to celebrate a retirement, but a cast including Billy Zane, Steve Zahn, and Romany Malco who could make a hangout comedy happen.

Other contenders: Cocked, a show from a Lie To Me writer with a very Lie to Me vibe, Point of Honour (a story about *ethical* Confederate soldiers), and Salem Rogers, a comedy about a supermodel (Leslie Bibb) that sounds kinda bad but co-stars Rachel Dratch, who I very much want to make a comeback.

There's also a comedy called Down Dog about a yoga instructor that sounds pretty terrible, but I'll withhold judgment until it airs.